Here’s what weathermen and baggage handlers have in common. We both use the 3-letter identifiers associated with airports to do our job. I’m at FLL, Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. We’re heading to LAX (Los Angeles International) with a stop at MSY (New Orleans).

Nowadays you have no choice but get to the airport very early. We saw the line for TSA check-in when we arrived Sunday. We’ve seen the jams on I-95 though Broward County. We left my folks condo at 8:00 AM and were at the airport before 9:00. The TSA area was virtually abandoned. Our flight doesn’t leave until 10:40 AM.

There is a Wind Chill Warning in effect down here! Please try not to chuckle. It was 44&#176 when we got in the car. The wind chill was in the mid 30s. At the airport the skycap who took our bags was wearing a hood… and it was tied tight! You don’t want to know about my dad.

We bought food and scouted the terminal. Now we wait. Thank you FLL for plenty of power plugs and free WiFi!

Our flights are listed as on time… even the inbound leg from Providence. I’m impressed.

It was very nice seeing my parents. My mother had been progressing very slowly after shattering her elbow. Now things seem much better.

My dad’s eyesight is great after (finally) getting the cataract surgery he needed for years. He wears hearing aids though it often seems they’re only for show!

There will be all sorts of retrospectives about Katrina this weekend as we mark the fifth anniversary. It was the most devastating hurricane in generations. You have probably seen hours-upon-hours of video. There are still things you don’t know.

Though the forecast was a little sketchy early on by the time Katrina was steaming through the Gulf the forecast was well established. Weather Service warnings contained the strongest language I’ve ever seen!

But what good is a warning when you’ve got no way out? That was the problem that faced the very poor people of New Orleans.

The brunt of Hurricane Katrina wasn’t actually felt in New Orleans! If you’re looking for the real wind damage it was east on the Mississippi Coast.

No doubt New Orleans did have wind damage, but it wasn’t major devastation and we wouldn’t be having retrospectives today.

On the afternoon of Katrina’s Gulf landfall I remember an AccuWeather meteorologist appearing on Fox News to say New Orleans had dodged the bullet&#185–and it had! The New Orleans flooding didn’t come until late Monday evening long after Katrina’s strongest winds were gone.

Anyone with rudimentary knowledge of New Orleans and tropical meteorology knew this tragedy was a possible outcome from a landfalling hurricane in a city built mainly below sea level&#178. What we didn’t take into account was how this unfolded after-the-fact.

Rick Sanchez was on the air, speaking by phone with someone from Tulane Hospital in New Orleans. The hospital’s spokesperson was talking about water – rising water.

The hospital had seen no real flooding while Hurricane Katrina passed by, but tonight, water had begun rushing in and it was rising at an alarming rate.

I could hear the fear in her voice as she described the water level rising an inch every five minutes. That’s a foot an hour. Already there was six feet of water outside the hospital. Soon, water would reach the level of their emergency generators on the second floor.

Sanchez was taken aback. I’m not sure he originally understood what she was saying. It was so unexpected – so out of context.

She said a levee keeping Lake Ponchartrain out of New Orleans had been breached. The cut in the levee was two blocks long and water was rushing in unimpeded. Even if there were pumps working, and she wasn’t sure there were, they wouldn’t be able to keep up with this deluge.

On CNN, Rick Sanchez kept asking questions, but it was obvious this woman wanted to get off the phone. Speaking to him wasn’t going to help her.

I heard terror in her voice.

That was the first anyone outside the 9th Ward heard about flooding. Silently and under cover of darkness Katrina was delivering her fateful blow… and she was already gone.

&#185 – This is my memory from that time. I’d feel better with documentation. I mention AccuWeather because this is my recollection. Any corrections or clarifications are welcome.

&#178 – New Orleans was originally a trading post built by the French. When Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville established the city he chose to build on the highest ground–the French Quarter. There was little flooding in the French Quarter.

For the Foxes this was a busy weekend. We had events Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday evening was spent with Harvey and Sandy in Woodbridge. They have an annual Chanukah party. We’ve been going most years for as long as I can remember. Ages ranged from 11 weeks to too old to gracefully ask.

We get to Wodbridge totally on smaller secondary roads. At one point we take a narrow 2-lane road twisting along the shore of a reservoir. There’s water on one side and a fence on the other. Saturday evening was extremely foogy. No fun driving in that.

During Chanukah Jewish families light the menorah each night at sundown. The tradition at Harvey and Sandy’s party is all the families bring their own menorahs and light them at once–which was great because the party used to be early in Chanukah.

Saturday each family lit seven candles plus an additional ‘helper’ candle. Helaine and I discussed standing by with 9-1 dialed on the cellphone. The dining room was noticably warmed by all those candles.

We look forward to the “pigs in blankets” served each year. As we walked in someone was carrying them to the basement. That’s where the kids usually hang out. Did we go downstairs just for the pigs? I’ll never tell.

Harvey always has fun toys to play with. This time he had X-Plane installed. Running on his Mac with a flight yoke and pedals it was amazingly fun to fly. It was impossible for me to easily control.

One of their three grown, daughters&#185 was home. She works in New York as a production assistant on some Bravo productions. Both Helaine and Stef were impressed she was working on Top Chef, which they enjoy and I’ve never seen.

Sunday the occasion was totally different. It was my friend Farrell’s mother’s 90th birthday. Being 90 is a difficult job. Ruth is equal to the task.

I wrote about Ruth in August 2005. She was about to get caught up in one of the biggest news stories of the decade.

I just got off the phone with my friend’s mom in New Orleans.

We’ve never met in person, but she knows me. I’ve fixed her computer by remote control. She’s seen me on TV while visiting her daughter in Connecticut. I’ve known her son for over 25 years and he’s a trusted friend.

She understands I’m looking out for her.

“Leave,” I said. “Leave now.”

Ruth lives in Connecticut now, near her daughter. Her home was flooded and destroyed in Katrina’s aftermath.

A few days ago Farrell sent me an email, looking for a way to make a slideshow of family photographs. I suggested Animoto. Farrell came with the slideshow in his laptop…his Mac laptop.

That’s when we found out his Mac notebook doesn’t have a VGA out port. He couldn’t plug in to the projector. Seriously–no VGA plug? I am surprised even though my friends with Mac always tell me how much they like their machines and how frustrated they are by some tasks they can’t perform or programs they can’t run.

I found a way to convert the slideshow video to an m4v file (never heard of it before) which was somehow compatible with another laptop–a Dell. We used ‘sneaker net’ in the form of a USB stick to move it. The slideshow did go on.

At age 90 you get a note from your congressman (Rep. Rosa DeLauro) and a proclamation from the governor declaring your birthday as Ruth Meisel Day in Connecticut.

Ruth wore a crown. It’s good to be Queen.

&#185 – Sandy went to the hospital to give birth to their second child. It was only after the delivery they discovered there was one more child in there. Really.

Gustav has come onshore in Louisiana. As of this moment the impact has been less than feared. That’s the best I could have possibly written, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, though the storm is pulling away, the danger is not done. I’ve been watching the water level in the New Orleans canals protected by levees. They’re still high. They have not begun to recede. As long as the water levels are high the pressure on the levees will remain high.

As I type this, Gustav is somewhere near the Cayman Islands, picking up strength and heading toward the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf is warm. Gustav will strengthen some more.

For the past few days the official Hurricane Center Track has pushed Gustav toward the Louisiana coast sometime late Monday/early Tuesday. The latest center of the track would bring landfall west of the Mississippi over a swampy, sparsely populated area near Vermillion Bay. That would put New Orleans on the stronger side of the storm, but possibly far enough away to escape the worst. Katrina struck on the opposite side of New Orleans–actually on the Mississippi coast. For Katrina, New Orleans was on the weak side!

Monday’s a long way off. The track will certainly shift somewhat by then.

There is a misconception most people have about Katrina. I’m writing tonight to put that part of the Katrina saga in perspective. The damage in New Orleans was hurricane related, but it wasn’t the damage you expect in a hurricane. On the Mississippi coast structures were blown apart. In New Orleans most buildings were intact until they were flooded.

I’m not saying there wasn’t damage before the water–there most certainly was. But New Orleans wasn’t flattened by a hurricane. It didn’t receive strong and sustained hurricane force winds. It was not the ‘worst case scenario’ storm New Orleans had feared.

New Orleans wasn’t totally laid to waste. There has been plenty of damage, and once we get out of the ‘fog of war’ we’ll find plenty more. The coasts of Alabama and Mississippi really took the brunt of Hurricane Katrina. That was more than expected.

After the fact, I still agree with the decision to empty out New Orleans. Yes, some people will crawl out of the woodwork to say they rode it out and it wasn’t that bad. That’s not the point.

At this point the New Orleans hurricane damage from Katrina wasn’t that bad. The damage we all saw didn’t start until later Monday night long after the storm was over. It was as if the Katrina unfolded in slow motion.

Rick Sanchez was on the air, speaking by phone with someone from Tulane Hospital in New Orleans. The hospital’s spokesperson was talking about water – rising water.

The hospital had seen no real flooding while Hurricane Katrina passed by, but tonight, water had begun rushing in and it was rising at an alarming rate.

I could hear the fear in her voice as she described the water level rising an inch every five minutes. That’s a foot an hour. Already there was six feet of water outside the hospital. Soon, water would reach the level of their emergency generators on the second floor.

Sanchez was taken aback. I’m not sure he originally understood what she was saying. It was so unexpected – so out of context.

She said a levee keeping Lake Ponchartrain out of New Orleans had been breached. The cut in the levee was two blocks long and water was rushing in unimpeded. Even if there were pumps working, and she wasn’t sure there were, they wouldn’t be able to keep up with this deluge.

On CNN, Rick Sanchez kept asking questions, but it was obvious this woman wanted to get off the phone. Speaking to him wasn’t going to help her.

I heard terror in her voice.

The hospital had to get its patients out. Its patients were by and large critical. The only way to move them would be by helicopter and FEMA would be needed for that.

The other all news stations are in their usual reruns. I have no way of knowing if this is true. If it is, this is New Orleans’ worst fears are realized. Lake Ponchartrain could inundate the city.

Here’s my point. If Gustav gets strong (likely) and hits just west of New Orleans (possible) there will be a different type of damage in the Crescent City. New Orleans could just get blown over. Nothing FEMA or the Corps of Engineers has done would prevent this kind of destruction.

I’m not sure which scenario is worse–what happened in ’05 or what’s possible in a few days. They are not, unfortunately, mutually exclusive scenarios.

Three years ago today I was on the phone with Farrell’s mom Ruth, try to get her out of New Orleans. Here’s what I wrote that day. Now I’m worried about New Orleans again.

Gustav is south of Cuba, heading toward Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. The route is totally different from Katrina’s, but the projected destination is eerily similar.

Much of the controlling mechanism behind hurricanes is seasonably predictable. At different times in the hurricane season different areas are favored for development and track. It’s not a big surprise a potential hurricane is aiming at the mid-Gulf Coast on Katrina’s anniversary week.

Gustav will gain strength. It’s tough to think it will go anywhere but the Gulf. I’m scared it will plow into the Gulf Coast states. I hope I’m wrong. It’s a hope I have too often during the hurricane season.

I was out of bed at 11:00 this morning. That’s especially early for a Sunday start.

Helaine had long since left the bedroom. She was downstairs, doing everything she could to be ready for today’s important business – football!

Though New Orleans got clocked by Baltimore (I know – live with it) Thursday night, the season really starts today. The Eagles will be playing at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. And, of course, we live and die by the Eagles.

Two hours before game time, as she sat and intently listened to the ESPN coverage, Helaine turned to me and jokingly said, “I am every man’s fantasy. A woman who loves football.”

She is.

When we were married, it was her subscription to Sports Illustrated that came to our Buffalo apartment. She’s enough of a fan to root against teams, because my enemies enemy is my friend.

Oh, speaking of ESPN, five commentators on the set makes for one of the most unwieldy camera shots ever. Five guys in a row is just too wide. Maybe it’s better on HDTV with its stretched screen.

The real deal begins in about a half hour. A competitive team will make for a fun fall. Wish us luck.